Julius Schmidt, sculptor and UI professor emeritus, dies at 94

In this 1987 photo, Julius Schmidt, professor of sculpture at the University of Iowa, poses with his then-student Luisa Caldwell in the foundry adjacent to the old Art Building on the University of Iowa campus. The facility was damaged in the flood of 2008 and was later demolished. Schmidt died Tuesday at age 94.(Photo: Submitted photo)

Colleagues and former students are remembering Julius Schmidt as "the grandfather of cast iron sculpture," "a master of resourcefulness and ingenuity" and "a teacher of art and life."

The sculptor and University of Iowa professor emeritus died Tuesday at his home in Iowa City. He was 94.

Born in 1923 in Connecticut, Schmidt served as a tail-gunner in World War II before earning his B.F.A. and M.F.A. in Sculpture from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan.

He came to Iowa City in 1970 to lead UI's sculpture program and stayed in that position until his retirement in 1993. During that time, he guided the program to national prominence.

His art was "inspired by nature, the machine, traditional practices and the dichotomy between the natural and the mechanical," according to an obituary posted by the family.

Julius Schmidt, shown in this undated photo, served from 1970 to 1993 as the director of the sculpture program for the University of Iowa School of Art and Art History.(Photo: Submitted photo)

"He set an amazing example, on how to get things done," said Luisa Caldwell, who studied under Schmidt in the late 1980s. "He ran the graduate program on a shoestring, as pouring hundreds to thousands of pounds of iron was an ambitious and expensive process."

Caldwell said Schmidt stretched his program's budget by sending students out to the railroad tracks to collect limestone, which is used in the process of melting iron. They also made cupolas — a cylindrical furnace for refining metals — from 55-gallon drums and vacuum cleaners.

"I really respect that he was able to pass that sense of self-sufficiency on to his students, making it seem possible for me as a young artist to move to New York City with practically nothing," she said.

Steve McGuire, interim director of the UI School of Art and Art History, likewise studied under Schmidt as a graduate student.

"I fondly remember him arriving many times before 5 a.m. to fire up the furnace to work with me to cast my work; having me work all night; reviewing my writing in other courses; helping me find a mentor in the College of Engineering; critiquing my work once a week," McGuire wrote in an email to his colleagues.

Schmidt's work appears in over 30 museums collections worldwide — including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art, the Walker Art Center, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Nelson-Atkins Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Chase-Manhattan Bank and the Nelson Rockefeller Collection.

"You have this thing eating at you," he said of the creative process in a 2007 Press-Citizen interview. "I'm gonna keep on making the stuff whether I sell it or not. … Art is my life."